I've been living in SE Asia for the past 3 years so this argument is quite interesting for me. I had a friend living in my city who as well as running a catering business worked with one of the biggest local charities stopping trafficking of women and children not always but often for the sex trade. Incidentally she was and still is also a well-paid bi-sexual S&M escort in her free time!

In this part of the world it gets very confusing trying to bridge the moral and social disconnect when the vast majority of the prostitution is easily placed in the morally reprehensible category yet its so endemic in the culture that wives/girlfriends/mothers will often just accept it going on and sometimes even actively encourage it. And most men will have engaged in it and often probably lost their virginity to a sex-worker.

Regardless my overall view is that the majority of prostitution that goes on in the world is objectively morally wrong, but that still doesn't mean I think sex-work is inherently wrong for any reason. Trying to use what you think the deeper emotional complexities involved with sex to the ends of creating a moral dogma for all sex trade is fundamentally flawed and counter-productive. Because peoples attitude to sex, there own sexuality and emotional attachments to the act are far from uniform.

I also believe that if we were in a fairer society for women, with more equal societal standards, there would probably be a lot more of an equal demographic of women looking for, and openly using male prostitutes. How would you feel about it then?

I see this issue very much like I do with drugs, legalise and provide effective and thorough control with a good framework for support and let consenting adults get on with it.

What is it with people complaining about moralising? ALL laws express moral disapproval of an act considered to be damaging to society or individuals. If you say "don't judge what 2 consenting adults do" you are also making a moral judgement too (imo a pretty naive one considering we live in a society where these individual consensual actions inevitably have an effect on others).

In this light, it is absurd and vindictive to attack a man for doing everything in his power to understand the issues he is charged with scrutinising. How on earth is the Home Affairs committee chair to acquaint himself with the ins and outs of male prostitution, if not by having affairs at home with male prostitutes? How better to investigate the impact of cocaine than by offering it to guests, and observing its effects on mind and body close-up?

meanwhile (surprise surprise) corbyn is calling it "a private matter" and has said absolutely nothing about the blatant conflict of interest. more evidence that the supposedly 'progressive' left cannot be trusted when it comes to dealing with prostitution.

Have no doubt that you'll continue ignoring the evidence and cherry picking the bits of reactionary (speculative, homophobic etc) tabloid press which support your position though!

You're missing (or more like deliberately overlooking) the entire point as usual: there is a blatant conflict of interest in a punter chairing an influential committee on a potential sex buyer law. Lets not pretend this all about privacy and the tabloid press.

So you want to frame this as a homophobic invasion of privacy involving no conflict of interest, as well as believing that this guy actually put up a strong fight in favour of the Nordic model at that meeting? How could Vaz genuinely be in favour of the Nordic model in any way if he himself is willing to buy sex?

In that article where is a direct quote from the horse’s mouth that proves Vaz has ever genuinely ‘backed calls to outlaw paying for sex’? Brooke Magnanti pulled that little quote out of an old Sunday times article of what a reporter said about Vaz, proving nothing about what he said or thinks. And why would you trust a word a slimeball like him says even it did?

Something he did actually put his name to was “we are not yet convinced that the sex buyer law would be effective in reducing demand or in improving the lives of sex workers...”

Read: “I have no intention of being convinced that the sex buyer law would be effective in these things because I don’t give a shit, I’m a sex buyer myself.”

So Vaz’s idea of a safe, regulated prostitution scenario involves desperate Romanian immigrants, cocaine and no condoms, family down the road. Nothing out of the ordinary for a typical sex buyer then – the exploitive men that the sex industry wants to remain invisible.

I notice Paris Lees is trying to pull the same stunt; by claiming Vaz is ‘hypocritical’ and that the sex work lobby influenced the inquiry outcome ‘in spite of’ him, they can position themselves as anti-authority (after all they probably realize that backing someone like Vaz is not a good look) while averting attention away from sex buyers and tackling demand. Vaz has never came out in support of the Nordic model. All he and the committee have ever done is ignore the issue of demand completely and call for the decriminalization of soliciting (which let’s not forget, the Nordic model also calls for anyway).

Read between the lines: it really looks like the sex lobby is unsure of how to put apparent distance between them and Vaz, while also defending sex buyers privacy and avoiding discrediting the pro-prostitution legislation that men like Vaz can help them pass. So we get cynical accusations of homophobia – as if his actions wouldn’t have been equally abhorrent if it had been female prostitutes he had bought. No mention of how the prostitutes happened to be exploited Romanian migrants, one of whom he planned to ‘break in’ that very night. Or blame the tabloid press (just like Vaz was quick to do of course), cos everyone hates the tabloids anyway don’t they? Digs at feminists and prostitution survivors. That will distract away from what Vaz actually did, what punters actually do, and why it made his position as chair of that committee a disgrace, and prostitution look bad.

Then again, the committee was made up of majority men, so I suppose there was always a good statistical chance that one of them would be a sex buyer themselves.

Brooke Magnanti /Belle de jour became rich from propagating the happy hooker myth and the idea that ‘sex work’ is some kind of glamorous and empowering lifestyle choice. You think her opinion is worth more than that of prostitution survivor movements like SPACE international? The article is full of the usual bullshit about how only ‘sex workers’ can have an opinion or be affected - its perfectly fine for creeps like Keith Vaz, Simon Danczuk and Corbyn to support the idea that prostitution is just a job like any other when it suits the pro sex-trade lobby. But the men’s lives must stay private at all cost, while women aren’t allowed an opinion on something that affects all of them, directly or indirectly.

And the persistent claims that the Nordic model kills women is ludicrous. In 16 years not one prostitute has been murdered by a john in Sweden since the model was adopted. Compare that to the countries where buying sex is decriminalized.

You're missing (or more like deliberately overlooking) the entire point as usual: there is a blatant conflict of interest in a punter chairing an influential committee on a potential sex buyer law. Lets not pretend this all about privacy and the tabloid press.

It's not a really a significant conflict of interest, though, is it? Any more than Frank Field shopping at BHS or Crispin (famous poppers expert) Blunt holidaying overseas...
It's inevitable that these committees' remits overlap with the real life of the politicians to some extent,
In this case it's all about stigma of rent boys. The fact that this stigma can be exploited to distort governance of the issue is part of the problem of criminalisation, surely...?

How could Vaz genuinely be in favour of the Nordic model in any way if he himself is willing to buy sex?

i dont think it's at all surprising that a politician should be capable of convincing themselves that there should be one rule for him and one for everyone else, particularly where sex and drugs are concerned.

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It's not a really a significant conflict of interest, though, is it? Any more than Frank Field shopping at BHS or Crispin (famous poppers expert) Blunt holidaying overseas...

Your comparisons are just crass. We are talking about a sexually exploitative man chairing a committee on prostitution laws – it’s truly sickening to think that prostitution survivors stood up and told their stories of abuse in front of this man at that meeting.

He said he wanted to ‘break in’ an eastern European migrant. He did this because he thinks it’s ok to pay vulnerable people to have sex with him because they are nothing but sexual objects to be exploited. He did this, not because he was gay, not because he had to hide his sexual identity, but because he enjoys dominating and exploiting people and feels he is entitled to it.

And you don’t think there’s a ‘significant’ conflict of interest to have a man like this in that position of responsibility?

It's inevitable that these committees' remits overlap with the real life of the politicians to some extent,

‘these committees’, like they were just any old thing. This committee was supposed to be tackling the problem of sexual exploitation, which is overwhelmingly committed by men against vulnerable groups, the vast majority being women and girls. It should never have been made up by a majority of men in the first place, certainly not someone like him. This point had been made previously by Nordic model advocates who warned something like this would happen, and they were right.

The whole HASC report should be scrapped and started again.

In this case it's all about stigma of rent boys. The fact that this stigma can be exploited to distort governance of the issue is part of the problem of criminalisation, surely...?

If you’re talking about how the criminalization of ‘rent boys’ stigmatizes them then yes I agree – the Nordic model calls for the decriminalization of prostitutes too.

But it is MEN who stigmatise ‘rent boys’ by treating vulnerable and desperate people as sexual objects to be bought, ‘broken in’ and used. The stigma must exist for men to be able to justify exploiting someone this way – you can’t treat a real human being that way, but a sexual object? Just a migrant who needs the money to survive? Fair game. As long as prostitution exists, prostitutes will be stigmatized. If there is to be any stigma it should be put on sex buyers by holding them to account for their exploitative actions.

Prostitution is gendered, don’t try and deflect from the fact that is overwhelmingly women who are exploited by men by turning it into *just* a thing about rentboy stigma and homophobia.

i dont think it's at all surprising that a politician should be capable of convincing themselves that there should be one rule for him and one for everyone else, particularly where sex and drugs are concerned.

Dear me, you’ve really been taken in haven’t you? Vaz has never came out in favour of the Nordic model, why on earth would he make the effort to back a radical law that would criminalise him? He may well have been forced to ask a few challenging questions to the sex trade to keep up appearances but, as a sex buyer himself, what would he have to gain personally or professionally from resisting the sex worker lobby?

Meanwhile the evidence and testimonies from prostitution survivors and feminists was dismissed – without knowing it, in denouncing the sex trade they were also actually denouncing Vaz himself face to face. They were basically in the dock facing their exploiter all over again. You really think he was going to empathise with them?

But you’d rather make the stretch that Vaz (and by extension any sex buyer) would actively back a law that would criminalise him and threaten his god-given right to exploit people, rather than just see him for what he plainly is. He didn’t have to ‘convince himself’ of anything, he clearly has never given a shit about the Nordic model and he knew exactly what he was doing. Now he's crying because he got caught out.